Volunteers at The National Archives (TNA) have completed a six year project to catalogue over 200,000 records of Second World War prisoners of war (POWs).
The volunteers worked to sort and digitally catalogue the WO 416 file series, which primarily contains records of British and Allied POWs captured by German forces during the Second World War.
The records have been sorted into numbered and ordered envelopes and digitally added to Discovery, TNA’s catalogue.
Family historians can now search for particular individuals on Discovery and view information such as their name, date and place of birth, rank, regiment, unit or squadron, service number, date of capture, theatre of capture, camp name or number, POW number and date of death. The information also contains a record reference, which they can use to order the record at TNA.
Over 90% of the records are open to the public. Those remaining closed will be opened 100 years after the birth of any named individuals, with the vast majority being opened by 2028.
Rosemary Collins is the features editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
